Kuczynski said the impeachment proceedings against him were ‘an assault on the democratic order’.
Photograph: Handout/Reuters

Peru is on the brink of political crisis as its president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, faces impeachment after it emerged that he concealed decade-old business ties with the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, which has been at the centre of Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal.

Legislators are expected to vote in congress on Thursday whether to oust the 79-year-old president from office for “permanent moral incapacity”.

Speaking to journalists on Sunday, Kuczynski accused the majority political opposition party of trying to fast-track his impeachment just 16 months into his five-year mandate. If he is removed Kuczynski would be the first sitting president in Latin America to be forced out in the Odebrecht scandal, which has spread across 12 countries in Latin America.

In a 2016 plea bargain with the US justice department, Odebrecht admitted paying some $800m (£597m) in bribes across the region to secure lucrative state contracts, including $29m in Peru between 2005 and 2014.

The Odebrecht money trail in Brazil has sucked in President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is appealing a corruption conviction related to the firm, and the current president, Michel Temer, who was accused at the end of last year of taking bribes from Odebrecht, but has so far held off an impeachment process.

“Congress gave him an ultimatum: ‘Resign or we’ll force you out,’” said Pedro Cateriano, a prime minister in Peru’s last government. “As he didn’t resign, they’re carrying out that threat, violating his right to defence, due process and the presumption of innocence,”

Kuczynski denies wrongdoing but admitted he made “some money” as a shareholder from business deals his company, Westfield Capital, did with Odebrecht. He claims he had no involvement in its management while he held ministerial roles in the government of Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006).

On Friday, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to begin impeachment proceedings. A move Kuczynski called “an assault against the democratic order” in a TV interview on Sunday.

Gustavo Gorriti, who is leading the journalistic investigation into Peruvian politicians implicated in the Odebrecht scandal, called the move an “utter travesty of law and due process.”

This version is backed up by an open letter sent by Odebrecht to a Peruvian newspaper on Saturday, which states the business done with Kuczynski’s company was legal and managed by his business partner Gerardo Sepúlveda.

However, the Fuerza Popular party says Kuczysnki has repeatedly lied about his professional links to Odebrecht and its leading congresswoman Luz Salgado told Reuters they would not try to topple his would-be successor, vice president Martin Vizcarra.

Cateriano says the rush to impeach Kuczynski is part of a broader move to strengthen Fujimori’s party as it tries to oust members of Peru’s highest court and the attorney general, as prosecutors investigate allegations of illegal donations from Odebrecht to her presidential campaigns in 2011 and 2016.

Former president Toledo is currently fighting extradition to Peru on charges he received $20m in bribes from the Brazilian firm while Ollanta Humala, the country’s last president (2011-2016), is in pre-trial detention, along with his wife Nadine Heredia, pending charges of laundering money from the company.